Perhaps a week after the conversation between St. Clair and Walcott, Randolph Mason stood in the private writing-room of the club with his hands behind his back.
He was a man apparently in the middle forties; tall and reasonably broad across the shoulders; muscular without being either stout or lean. His hair was thin and of a brown color, with erratic streaks of gray. His forehead was broad and high and of a faint reddish color. His eyes were restless inky black, and not over-large. The nose was big and muscular and bowed. The eyebrows were black and heavy, almost bushy. There were heavy furrows, running from the nose downward and outward to the corners of the mouth. The mouth was straight and the jaw was heavy, and square.
Looking at the face of Randolph Mason from above, the expression in repose was crafty and cynical; viewed from below upward, it was savage and vindictive, almost brutal; while from the front, if looked squarely in the face, the stranger was fascinated by the animation of the man and at once concluded that his expression was fearless and sneering. He was evidently of Southern extraction and a man of unusual power.
A fire smouldered on the hearth. It was a crisp evening in the early fall, and with that far-off touch of melancholy which ever heralds the coming winter, even in the midst of a city. The man's face looked tired and ugly. His long white hands were clasped tight together. His entire figure and face wore every mark of weakness and physical exhaustion; but his eyes contradicted. They were red and restless.
In the private dining-room the dinner party was in the best of spirits. Samuel Walcott was happy. Across the table from him was Miss Virginia St. Clair, radiant, a tinge of color in her cheeks. On either side, Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant and Marshall St. Clair were brilliant and light-hearted. Walcott looked at the young girl and the measure of his worship was full. He wondered for the thousandth time how she could possibly love him and by what earthly miracle she had come to accept him, and how it would be always to have her across the table from him, his own table in his own house.
They were about to rise from the table when one of the waiters entered the room and handed Walcott an envelope. He thrust it quickly into his pocket In the confusion of rising the others did not notice him, but his face was ash-white and his hands trembled violently as he placed the wraps around the bewitching shoulders of Miss St. Clair.
"Marshall," he said, and despite the powerful effort his voice was hollow, "you will see the ladies safely cared for, I am called to attend a grave matter."
"All right, Walcott," answered the young man, with cheery good-nature, "you are too serious, old man, trot along."
"The poor dear," murmured Mrs. Steuvisant, after Walcott had helped them to the carriage and turned to go up the steps of the club,—"The poor dear is hard hit, and men are such funny creatures when they are hard hit."
Samuel Walcott, as his fate would, went direct to the private writing-room and opened the door. The lights were not turned on and in the dark he did not see Mason motionless by the mantel-shelf. He went quickly across the room to the writing-table, turned on one of the lights, and, taking the envelope from his pocket, tore it open. Then he bent down by the light to read the contents. As his eyes ran over the paper, his jaw fell. The skin drew away from his cheek-bones and his face seemed literally to sink in. His knees gave way under him and he would have gone down in a heap had it not been for Mason's long arms that closed around him and held him up. The human economy is ever mysterious. The moment the new danger threatened, the latent power of the man as an animal, hidden away in the centres of intelligence, asserted itself. His hand clutched the paper and, with a half slide, he turned in Mason's arms. For a moment he stared up at the ugly man whose thin arms felt like wire ropes.
"You are under the dead-fall, aye," said Mason. "The cunning of my enemy is sublime."
"Your enemy?" gasped Walcott. "When did you come into it? How in God's name did you know it? How your enemy?"
Mason looked down at the wide bulging eyes of the man.
"Who should know better than I?" he said. "Haven't I broken through all the traps and plots that she could set?"
"She? She trap you?" The man's voice was full of horror.
"The old schemer," muttered Mason. "The cowardly old schemer, to strike in the back; but we can beat her. She did not count on my helping you—I, who know her so well."
Mason's face was red, and his eyes burned. In the midst of it all he dropped his hands and went over to the fire. Samuel Walcott arose, panting, and stood looking at Mason, with his hands behind him on the table. The naturally strong nature and the rigid school in which the man had been trained presently began to tell. His composure in part returned and he thought rapidly. What did this strange man know? Was he simply making shrewd guesses, or had he some mysterious knowledge of this matter? Walcott could not know that Mason meant only Fate, that he believed her to be his great enemy. Walcott had never before doubted his own ability to meet any emergency. This mighty jerk had carried him off his feet. He was unstrung and panic-stricken. At any rate this man had promised help. He would take it. He put the paper and envelope carefully into his pocket, smoothed out his rumpled coat, and going over to Mason touched him on the shoulder.
"Come," he said, "if you are to help me we must go."
The man turned and followed him without a word. In the hall Mason put on his hat and overcoat, and the two went out into the street. Walcott hailed a cab, and the two were driven to his house on the avenue. Walcott took out his latch-key, opened the door, and led the way into the library. He turned on the light and motioned Mason to seat himself at the table. Then he went into another room and presently returned with a bundle of papers and a decanter of brandy. He poured out a glass of the liquor and offered it to Mason. The man shook his head. Walcott poured the contents of the glass down his own throat. Then he set the decanter down and drew up a chair on the side of the table opposite Mason.
"Sir," said Walcott, in a voice deliberate, indeed, but as hollow as a sepulchre, "I am done for. God has finally gathered up the ends of the net, and it is knotted tight."
"Am I not here to help you?" said Mason, turning savagely. "I can beat Fate. Give me the details of her trap."
He bent forward and rested his arms on the table. His streaked gray hair was rumpled and on end, and his face was ugly. For a moment Walcott did not answer. He moved a little into the shadow; then he spread the bundle of old yellow papers out before him.
"To begin with," he said, "I am a living lie, a gilded crime-made sham, every bit of me. There is not an honest piece anywhere. It is all lie. I am a liar and a thief before men. The property which I possess is not mine, but stolen from a dead man. The very name which I bear is not my own, but is the bastard child of a crime. I am more than all that—I am a murderer; a murderer before the law; a murderer before God; and worse than a murderer before the pure woman whom I love more than anything that God could make."
He paused for a moment and wiped the perspiration from his face.
"Sir," said Mason, "this is all drivel, infantile drivel. What you are is of no importance. How to get out is the problem, how to get out."
Samuel Walcott leaned forward, poured out a glass of brandy and swallowed it.
"Well," he said, speaking slowly, "my right name is Richard Warren. In the spring of 1879 I came to New York and fell in with the real Samuel Walcott, a young man with a little money and some property which his grandfather had left him. We became friends, and concluded to go to the far west together. Accordingly we scraped together what money we could lay our hands on, and landed in the gold-mining regions of California. We were young and inexperienced, and our money went rapidly. One April morning we drifted into a little shack camp, away up in the Sierra Nevadas, called Hell's Elbow. Here we struggled and starved for perhaps a year. Finally, in utter desperation, Walcott married the daughter of a Mexican gambler, who ran an eating-house and a poker joint. With them we lived from hand to mouth in a wild God-forsaken way for several years. After a time the woman began to take a strange fancy to me. Walcott finally noticed it, and grew jealous.
"One night, in a drunken brawl, we quarrelled, and I killed him. It was late at night, and, beside the woman, there were four of us in the poker room,—the Mexican gambler, a half-breed devil called Cherubim Pete, Walcott, and myself. When Walcott fell, the half-breed whipped out his weapon, and fired at me across the table; but the woman, Nina San Croix, struck his arm, and, instead of killing me, as he intended, the bullet mortally wounded her father, the Mexican gambler. I shot the half-breed through the forehead, and turned round, expecting the woman to attack me. On the contrary, she pointed to the window, and bade me wait for her on the cross-trail below.
"It was fully three hours later before the woman joined me at the place indicated. She had a bag of gold dust, a few jewels that belonged to her father, and a package of papers. I asked her why she had stayed behind so long, and she replied that the men were not killed outright, and that she had brought a priest to them and waited until they had died. This was the truth, but not all the truth. Moved by superstition or foresight, the woman had induced the priest to take down the sworn statements of the two dying men, seal it, and give it to her. This paper she brought with her. All this I learned afterwards. At the time I knew nothing of this damning evidence.
"We struck out together for the Pacific coast. The country was lawless. The privations we endured were almost past belief. At times the woman exhibited cunning and ability that were almost genius; and through it all, often in the very fingers of death, her devotion to me never wavered. It was dog-like, and seemed to be her only object on earth. When we reached San Francisco, the woman put these papers into my hands." Walcott took up the yellow package, and pushed it across the table to Mason.
"She proposed that I assume Walcott's name, and that we come boldly to New York and claim the property. I examined the papers, found a copy of the will by which Walcott inherited the property, a bundle of correspondence, and sufficient documentary evidence to establish his identity beyond the shadow of a doubt. Desperate gambler as I now was, I quailed before the daring plan of Nina San Croix. I urged that I, Richard Warren, would be known, that the attempted fraud would be detected and would result in investigation, and perhaps unearth the whole horrible matter.
"The woman pointed out how much I resembled Walcott, what vast changes ten years of such life as we had led would naturally be expected to make in men, how utterly impossible it would be to trace back the fraud to Walcott's murder at Hell's Elbow, in the wild passes of the Sierra Nevadas. She bade me remember that we were both outcasts, both crime-branded, both enemies of man's law and God's; that we had nothing to lose; we were both sunk to the bottom. Then she laughed, and said that she had not found me a coward until now, but that if I had turned chicken-hearted, that was the end of it, of course. The result was, we sold the gold dust and jewels in San Francisco, took on such evidences of civilization as possible, and purchased passage to New York on the best steamer we could find.
"I was growing to depend on the bold gambler spirit of this woman, Nina San Croix; I felt the need of her strong, profligate nature. She was of a queer breed and a queerer school. Her mother was the daughter of a Spanish engineer, and had been stolen by the Mexican, her father. She herself had been raised and educated as best might be in one of the monasteries along the Rio Grande, and had there grown to womanhood before her father, fleeing into the mountains of California, carried her with him.
"When we landed in New York I offered to announce her as my wife, but she refused, saying that her presence would excite comment and perhaps attract the attention of Walcott's relatives. We therefore arranged that I should go alone into the city, claim the property, and announce myself as Samuel Walcott, and that she should remain under cover until such time as we would feel the ground safe under us.
"Every detail of the plan was fatally successful. I established my identity without difficulty and secured the property. It had increased vastly in value, and I, as Samuel Walcott, soon found myself a rich man. I went to Nina San Croix in hiding and gave her a large sum of money, with which she purchased a residence in a retired part of the city, far up in the northern suburb. Here she lived secluded and unknown while I remained in the city, living here as a wealthy bachelor.
"I did not attempt to abandon the woman, but went to her from time to time in disguise and under cover of the greatest secrecy. For a time everything ran smooth, the woman was still devoted to me above everything else, and thought always of my welfare first and seemed content to wait so long as I thought best. My business expanded. I was sought after and consulted and drawn into the higher life of New York, and more and more felt that the woman was an albatross on my neck. I put her off with one excuse after another. Finally she began to suspect me and demanded that I should recognize her as my wife. I attempted to point out the difficulties. She met them all by saying that we should both go to Spain, there I could marry her and we could return to America and drop into my place in society without causing more than a passing comment.
"I concluded to meet the matter squarely once for all. I said that I would convert half of the property into money and give it to her, but that I would not marry her. She did not fly into a storming rage as I had expected, but went quietly out of the room and presently returned with two papers, which she read. One was the certificate of her marriage to Walcott duly authenticated; the other was the dying statement of her father, the Mexican gambler, and of Samuel Walcott, charging me with murder. It was in proper form and certified by the Jesuit priest.
"Now," she said, sweetly, when she had finished, 'which do you prefer, to recognize your wife, or to turn all the property over to Samuel Walcott's widow and hang for his murder?'
"I was dumbfounded and horrified. I saw the trap that I was in and I consented to do anything she should say if she would only destroy the papers. This she refused to do. I pleaded with her and implored her to destroy them. Finally she gave them to me with a great show of returning confidence, and I tore them into bits and threw them into the fire.
"That was three months ago. We arranged to go to Spain and do as she said. She was to sail this morning and I was to follow. Of course I never intended to go. I congratulated myself on the fact that all trace of evidence against me was destroyed and that her grip was now broken. My plan was to induce her to sail, believing that I would follow. When she was gone I would marry Miss St. Clair, and if Nina San Croix should return I would defy her and lock her up as a lunatic. But I was reckoning like an infernal ass, to imagine for a moment that I could thus hoodwink such a woman as Nina San Croix.
"To-night I received this." Walcott took the envelope from his pocket and gave it to Mason. "You saw the effect of it; read it and you will understand why. I felt the death hand when I saw her writing on the envelope."
Mason took the paper from the envelope. It was written in Spanish, and ran:
"Greeting to Richard Warren.
"The great Senor does his little Nina injustice to think she would go away to Spain and leave him to the beautiful American. She is not so thoughtless. Before she goes, she shall be, Oh so very rich! and the dear Senor shall be, Oh so very safe! The Archbishop and the kind Church hate murderers.
"Nina San Croix.
"Of course, fool, the papers you destroyed were copies.
"N. San C."
To this was pinned a line in a delicate aristocratic hand, saying that the Archbishop would willingly listen to Madam San Croix's statement if she would come to him on Friday morning at eleven.
"You see," said Walcott, desperately, "there is no possible way out. I know the woman—when she decides to do a thing that is the end of it. She has decided to do this."
Mason turned around from the table, stretched out his long legs, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Walcott sat with his head down, watching Mason hopelessly, almost indifferently, his face blank and sunken. The ticking of the bronze clock on the mantel-shelf was loud, painfully loud. Suddenly Mason drew his knees in and bent over, put both his bony hands on the table, and looked at Walcott.
"Sir," he said, "this matter is in such shape that there is only one thing to do. This growth must be cut out at the roots, and cut out quickly. This is the first fact to be determined, and a fool would know it. The second fact is that you must do it yourself. Hired killers are like the grave and the daughters of the horse-leech,—they cry always, 'Give, Give,' They are only palliatives, not cures. By using them you swap perils. You simply take a stay of execution at best. The common criminal would know this. These are the facts of your problem. The master plotters of crime would see here but two difficulties to meet:
"A practical method for accomplishing the body of the crime.
"A cover for the criminal agent.
"They would see no farther, and attempt to guard no farther. After they had provided a plan for the killing, and a means by which the killer could cover his trail and escape from the theatre of the homicide, they would believe all the requirements of the problems met, and would stop. The greatest, the very giants among them, have stopped here and have been in great error.
"In every crime, especially in the great ones, there exists a third element, pre-eminently vital. This third element the master plotters have either overlooked or else have not had the genius to construct. They plan with rare cunning to baffle the victim. They plan with vast wisdom, almost genius, to baffle the trailer. But they fail utterly to provide any plan for baffling the punisher. Ergo, their plots are fatally defective and often result in ruin. Hence the vital necessity for providing the third element—the escape ipso jure."
Mason arose, walked around the table, and put his hand firmly on Samuel Walcott's shoulder. "This must be done to-morrow night," he continued; "you must arrange your business matters to-morrow and announce that you are going on a yacht cruise, by order of your physician, and may not return for some weeks. You must prepare your yacht for a voyage, instruct your men to touch at a certain point on Staten Island, and wait until six o'clock day after to-morrow morning. If you do not come aboard by that time, they are to go to one of the South American ports and remain until further orders. By this means your absence for an indefinite period will be explained. You will go to Nina San Croix in the disguise which you have always used, and from her to the yacht, and by this means step out of your real status and back into it without leaving traces. I will come here to-morrow evening and furnish you with everything that you shall need and give you full and exact instructions in every particular. These details you must execute with the greatest care, as they will be vitally essential to the success of my plan."
Through it all Walcott had been silent and motionless. Now he arose, and in his face there must have been some premonition of protest, for Mason stepped back and put out his hand. "Sir," he said, with brutal emphasis, "not a word. Remember that you are only the hand, and the hand does not think." Then he turned around abruptly and went out of the house.
For my part, Sidney," said the dark man, "I don't agree with your faith in Providence at all. For the last ten years it has kept too far afield of our House in every matter of importance. It has never once shown its face to us except for the purpose of interposing some fatal wrecker just at the critical moment. Don't you remember how it helped Barton Woodlas rob our father in that shoe trust at Lynn? And you will recall the railroad venture of our own. Did not the cursed thing go into the hands of a receiver the very moment we had gotten the stock cornered? And look at the oil deal. Did not the tools stick in both test wells within fifty feet of the sand, and all the saints could not remove them? I tell you I have no faith in it. The same thing is going to happen again."
"There is some truth in your rant, brother," replied the light man, "but I cling to my superstition. We have a cool million in this thing, a cool million. If we can only break the Chicago corner the market is bound to turn. The thing is below the cost of production now, and this western combine is already groggy. Ten thousand would break its backbone, and leave us in a position to force the market up to the ceiling."
"But how in Heaven's name, Sidney, are we going to get the other five thousand? To-day at ten I put up everything that could be scraped together, begged, or borrowed, and out of it all we have scarcely five thousand dollars. For any good that amount will do we might as well have none at all. We know that this combine would in all probability weather a plunge of five thousand, while a bold plunge of ten thousand would rout it as certainly as there is a sun in heaven, but we only have half enough money and no means of getting another dollar. If there were ten millions in it the case would be the same. The jig is up."
"I don't think so, Gordon. I don't give it up. We must raise the money."
"Raise the money!" put in the other, bitterly; "as well talk of raising the soul of Samuel. Did n't I say that I had raised the last money that human ingenuity could raise; that there was not another shining thing left on earth to either of us, but our beauty?—And it would take genius to raise money on that, Sidney, gigantic genius."
He stopped, and looked at his brother. The brother poured his soda into the brandy, and said simply, "We must find it."
"You find it," said Gordon Montcure, getting up, and walking backward and forward across the room.
For full ten minutes Sidney Montcure studied the bottom of his glass. Then he looked up, and said, "Brother, do you remember the little bald-headed man who stopped us on the steps of the Stock Exchange last week?"
"Yes; you mean the old ghost with the thin, melancholy face?"
"The same. You remember he said that if we were ever in a desperate financial position we should come to the office building on the Wall Street corner and inquire for Randolph Mason, and that Mason would show us a way out of the difficulty; but that under no circumstances were we to say how we happened to come to him, except that we had heard of his ability."
"I recall the queer old chap well," said the other. "He seemed too clean and serious for a fakir, but I suppose that is what he was; unless he is wrong in the head, which is more probable."
"Do you know, brother," said Sidney Montcure, thrusting his hands into his pockets, "I have been thinking of him, and I have a great mind to go down there in the morning just for a flyer. If there is any such man as Randolph Mason, he is not a fakir, because I know the building, and he could not secure an office in any such prominent place unless he was substantial."
"That is true, although I am convinced that you will find Randolph Mason a myth."
"At any rate, we have nothing to lose, brother; there may be something in it. Will you go with me to-morrow morning?"
The dark man nodded assent, and proceeded to add his autograph to the club's collection, as evidenced by its wine ticket.
Gordon and Sidney Montcure were high-caste club men of the New York type, brokers and plungers until three p.m., immaculate gentlemen thereafter. Both were shrewd men of the world. And as they left the Ephmere Club that night, that same club and divers shop-men of various guilds had heavy equitable interests in the success of their plans.
Shortly after ten the following morning, the two brothers entered the great building in which Randolph Mason was supposed to have his office. There, on the marble-slab directory, was indeed the name; but it bore no indication of his business, and simply informed the stranger that he was to be found on the second floor front. The two men stepped into the elevator, and asked the boy to show them to Mr. Mason's office. The boy put them off on the second floor, and directed them to enquire at the third door to the left. They found here a frosted glass door with "Randolph Mason, Counsellor," on an ancient silver strip fastened to the middle panel. Sidney Montcure opened the door, and the two entered. The office room into which they came was large and scrupulously clean.
The walls were literally covered with maps of every description. Two rows of mammoth closed bookcases extended across the room, and there were numerous file cases of the most improved pattern. At a big flat-topped table, literally heaped with letters, sat their friend, the little bald, melancholy man, writing as though his very life and soul were at stake.
"We desire to speak with Mr. Mason, sir," said Sidney Montcure, addressing the little man. The man arose, and went into the adjoining room. In a moment he returned and announced that Mr. Mason would see the gentlemen at once in his private office.
They found the private office of Randolph Mason to be in appearance much like the private office of a corporation attorney. The walls were lined with closed bookcases, and there were piles of plats and blue prints and bundles of papers scattered over a round-topped mahogany table.
Randolph Mason turned round in his chair as the men entered.
"Be seated, gentlemen," he said, removing his eye-glasses. "In what manner can I be of service?" His articulation was metallic and precise.
"We have had occasion to hear of your ability, Mr. Mason," said Gordon Montcure, "and we have called to lay our difficulty before you, in the hope that you may be able to suggest some remedy. It may be that our dilemma is beyond the scope of your vocation, as it is not a legal matter."
"Let me hear the difficulty," said Mason, bluntly.
"We are in a most unfortunate and critical position," said Gordon Montcure. "My brother and myself are members of the Board of Trade, and, in defiance of the usual rule, occasionally speculate for ourselves. After making elaborate and careful investigation, we concluded that the wheat market had reached bottom and was on the verge of a strong and unusual advance. We based this conclusion on two safe indications: the failure in production of the other staples, and the fact that the price of wheat was slightly below the bare cost of production. This status of the market we believed could not remain, and on Monday last we bought heavily on a slight margin. The market continued to fall. We covered our margins, and plunged, in order to bull the market. To our surprise the decline continued; we gathered all our ready money, and plunged again. The market wavered, but continued to decline slowly. Then it developed that there was a Chicago combine against us. We at once set about ascertaining the exact financial status of this combine, and discovered that it was now very weak, and that a bold plunge of ten thousand dollars would rout it. But unfortunately all our ready money was now gone. After exhausting every security and resorting to every imaginable means we have only five thousand dollars in all. This sum is utterly useless under the circumstances, for we know well that the combine would hold out against a plunge of this dimension and we would simply lose everything, while a bold, sudden plunge of ten thousand would certainly break the market and make us a vast fortune. Of course, no sane man will lend us money under circumstances of this kind, and it is not possible for us to raise another dollar on earth." The speaker leaned back in his chair, like a man who has stated what he knows to be a hopeless case. "We are consuming your time unnecessarily," he added; "our case is, of course, remediless."
Mason did not at once reply. He turned round in his chair and looked out of the open window. The two brothers observed him more closely. They noticed that his clothing was evidently of the best, that he was scrupulously neat and clean, and wore no ornament of any kind. Even the eyeglasses were attached to a black silk guard, and had a severely plain steel spring.
"Have you a middle name, sir?" he said, turning suddenly to Sidney Montcure.
"Yes," replied the man addressed, "Van Guilder; I am named for my grandfather."
"An old and wealthy family of this city, and well known in New England," said Mason; "that is fortunate." Then he bent forward and looking straight into the eyes of his clients said: "Gentlemen, if you are ready to do exactly what I direct, you will have five thousand dollars by to-morrow night. Is that enough?"
"Ample," replied Gordon Montcure; "and we are ready to follow your instructions to the letter in any matter that is not criminal."
"The transaction will be safely beyond the criminal statutes," said Mason, "although it is close to the border line of the law."
"'Beyond, is as good as a mile," said Gordon Montcure; "let us hear your plan."
"It is this," said Mason. "Down at Lynn, Massachusetts, there is a certain retired shoe manufacturer of vast wealth, accumulated by questionable transactions. He is now passing into the sixties, and, like every man of his position, is restless and unsatisfied. Five years ago he concluded to build a magnificent residence in the suburbs of Lynn. He spared nothing to make the place palatial in every respect. The work has been completed within the past summer. The grounds are superb, and the place is indeed princely. As long as the palace was in process of building, the old gentleman was interested and delighted; but no sooner was it finished than, like all men of his type, he was at once dissatisfied. He now thinks that he would like to travel on the continent, but he has constructed a Frankenstein Monster, which he imagines requires his personal care. He will not trust it to an agent, he does not dare to rent it, and he can find no purchaser for such a palace in such a little city. The mere fact that he cannot do exactly as he pleases is a source of huge vexation to such a man as old Barton Woodlas, of the Shoe Trust."
The two Montcures apparently gave no visible evidence of their mighty surprise and interest at the mention of the man who had robbed their father, yet Mason evidently saw something in the tail of their eyes, for he smiled with the lower half of his face, and continued: "You, sir," he said, speaking directly to Sidney Montcure, "must go to Lynn and buy this house in the morning."
"Buy the house!" answered the man, bitterly, "your irony approaches the sublime; we have only five thousand dollars and no security. How could we buy a house?"
"I am meeting the difficulties, if you please, sir," said Mason, "and not yourself. At ten tomorrow you must be at Lynn. At two p.m. you will call upon Barton Woodlas, giving your name as Sidney Van Guilder, from New York. He knows that family, and will at once presume your wealth. You will say to him that you desire to purchase a country place for your grandfather, and heard of his residence. The old gentleman will at once jump at this chance for a wealthy purchaser, and drive you out to his grounds. You will criticise somewhat and make some objections, but will finally conclude to purchase, if satisfactory terms can be made. Here you will find Barton Woodlas a shrewd business dealer, and you must follow my instructions to the very letter. He will finally agree to take about fifty thousand dollars. You will make the purchase proposing to pay down five thousand cash, and give a mortgage on the property for the residue of the purchase money, making short-time notes. Five thousand in hand and a mortgage will of course be safe, and the old gentleman will take it. You demand immediate possession, and as he is not residing in the house you will get it. Go with him at once to his attorney, pay the money, have the papers signed and recorded, and be in full possession of the property by four o'clock in the afternoon."
Mason stopped abruptly and turned to Gordon Montcure. "Sir," he said curtly, "I must ask you to step into the other office and remain until I have finished my instructions to your brother. I have found it best to explain to each individual that part of the transaction which he is expected to perform. Suggestions made in the presence of a third party invariably lead to disaster." Gordon Montcure went into the outer room and sat down. He was impressed by this strange interview with Mason. Here was certainly one of the most powerful and mysterious men he had ever met,—one whom he could not understand, who was a mighty enigma. But the man was so clear and positive that Montcure concluded to do exactly as he said. After all, the money they were risking was utterly worthless as matters now stood.
In a few moments Sidney Montcure came out of the private office and took a cab for the depot, leaving his brother in private interview with Randolph Mason.
The traveller crossing the continent in a Pullman car is convinced that West Virginia is one continuous mountain. He has no desire to do other than to hurry past with all the rapidity of which the iron horse is capable. He can have no idea that in its central portion is a stretch of rolling blue-grass country, as fertile and as valuable as the stock-farm lands of Kentucky; with a civilization, too, distinctly its own, and not to be met with in any other country of the world. It seems to combine, queerly enough, certain of the elements of the Virginia planter, the western ranchman, and the feudal baron. Perhaps nowhere in any of the United States can be found such decided traces of the ancient feudal system as in this inland basin of West Virginia, surrounded by great mountain ranges, and for many generations cut off from active relations with the outside world. Nor is this civilization of any other than natural growth. In the beginning, those who came to this region were colonial families of degree,—many of them Tories, hating Washington and his government, and staunch lovers of the king at heart, for whom the more closely settled east and south were too unpleasant after the success of the Revolution. Many of them found in this fertile land lying against the foot-hills, and difficult of access from either the east or west, the seclusion and the utter absence of relations with their fellows which they so much desired. With them they brought certain feudal customs as a basis for the civilization which they builded. The nature of the country forced upon them others, and the desire for gain—ever large in the Anglo-Saxon heart—brought in still other customs, foreign and incongruous.
Thus it happened that at an early day this country was divided into great tracts, containing thousands of acres of grass lands, owned by certain powerful families, who resided upon it, and, to a very large extent, preserved ancient customs and ancient ideas in relation to men. The idea of a centrally situated manor-house was one adhered to from the very first, and this differed from the Virginia manor in that it was more massive and seemed to be built with the desire of strength predominating, as though the builder had yet in mind a vague notion of baronial defences, and some half hope or half fear of grim fights, in which he and his henchmen would defend against the invader. Gradually, after the feudal custom, the owner of one of these great tracts gathered about him a colony of tenants and retainers, who looked after his stock and grew to be almost fixtures of the realty and partook in no degree of the shiftless qualities of the modern tenant. They were attached to the family of the master of the estate, and shared in his peculiarities and his prejudices. His quarrel became their own, and personal conflicts between the retainers of different landowners were not infrequent. At such times, if the breaches of the peace were of such a violent order as to attract the attention of the law, the master was in honor bound to shield his men as far as possible, and usually his influence was sufficient to preserve them from punishment.
Indeed it was the landowner and his people against the world. They were different from the Virginians in that they were more aggressive and powerful, and were of a more adventurous and hardy nature. They were never content to be mere farmers, or to depend upon the cultivation of the soil. Nor were they careful enough to become breeders of fine stock. For these reasons it came about that they adopted a certain kind of stock business, combining the qualities of the ranch and the farm. They bought in the autumn great herds of two-year-old cattle, picking them up along the borders of Virginia and Kentucky. These cattle they brought over the mountains in the fall, fed them through the winter, and turned them out in the spring to fatten on their great tracts of pasture land. In the summer this stock was shipped to the eastern market and sold in favorable competition with the corn-fed stock of the west, and the stable-fed cattle of Virginia and Pennsylvania. As this business grew, the little farmer along the border began to breed the finer grades of stock. This the great landowners encouraged, and as the breeds grew better, the stock put upon the market from this region became more valuable, until at length the blue-grass region of West Virginia has become famous for its beef cattle, and for many years its cattle have been almost entirely purchased by the exporters for the Liverpool market.
So famous have the cattle of certain of these great landowners become, that each season the exporters send men to buy the stock, and not infrequently contract for it from year to year. Often a landowner, in whom the speculative spirit is rife, will buy up the cattle and make great contracts with the exporter, or he will form a partnership with an eastern commission merchant and ship with the market. The risks taken in this business are great, and often vast sums of money are made or lost in a week. It is a hazardous kind of gambling for the reason that great amounts are involved, and the slightest fall in the market will often result in big loss. With the shipping feature of this business have grown certain customs. Sometimes partnerships will be formed to continue for one or more weeks, and for the purpose of shipping. One drove of cattle or a number of droves; and when the shippers are well known the cattle are not paid for until the shipper returns from the market, it being presumed that he would not carry in bank sufficient money to pay for a large drove.
It is a business containing all the peril and excitement of the stock exchange, and all its fascinating hope of gain, as well as its dreaded possibility of utter ruin. Often in a grimy caboose at the end of a slow freight train is as true and fearless a devotee of Fortune, and as reckless a plunger as one would find in the pit on Wall Street, and not infrequently one with as vast plans and as heavy a stake in the play as his brother of the city. Yet to look at him—big, muscular, and uncouth—one would scarcely suspect that every week he was juggling with values ranging from ten to sixty thousand dollars.
One Monday morning of July, William Harris, a passenger on the through St. Louis express of the Baltimore & Ohio, said to the conductor that he desired to get off at Bridgeport, a small shipping station in this blue-grass region of West Virginia. The conductor answered that his train did not stop at this station, but that as the town was on a grade at the mouth of a tunnel he would slow up sufficiently for Mr. Harris to jump off if he desired to assume the risk. This Harris concluded to do, and accordingly, as the train ran by the long open platform beside the cattle pens, he swung himself down from the steps of the car and jumped. The platform was wet, and as Harris struck the planks his feet slipped and he would have fallen forward directly under the wheels of the coach had it not been that a big man standing near by sprang forward and dragged him back.
"You had a damned close call there, my friend," said the big man.
"Yes," said Harris, picking himself up, "you cut the undertaker out of a slight fee by your quick work."
The stranger turned sharply when he heard Harris's voice and grasped him by the hand. "Why, Billy," he said, "I did n't know it was you. What are you doing out here?"
"Well, well!" said Harris, shaking the man's hand vigorously, "there is a God in Israel sure. You are the very man I am looking for, Woodford."
Thomas Woodford was a powerfully built man—big, and muscular as an ox. He was about forty, a man of property, and a cattle-shipper known through the whole country as a daring speculator of almost phenomenal success. His plans were often gigantic, and his very rashness seemed to be the means by which good fortune heaped its favors upon him. He was in good humor this morning. The reports from the foreign markets were favorable, and indications seemed to insure the probability of a decidedly substantial advance at home. He put his big hand upon Harris's arm and fairly led him down the platform. "What is up, Billy?" he asked, lowering his voice.
"In my opinion," answered Harris, "the big combine among the exporters is going to burst and go up higher than Gilderoy's kite, and if we can get over to New York in time, we will have the world by the tail."
"Holy-head-of-the-church!" exclaimed the cattle-shipper, dropping his hands. "It will be every man for himself, and they will have to pay whatever we ask. But we must get over there this week. Next week everything that wears hoofs will be dumped into Jersey City. Come over to the hotel and let us hold a council of war."
The two men crossed the railroad track and entered the little eating-house which bore the high-sounding and euphonious title of "Hotel Holloway." They went directly up the steps and into a small room in the front of the building overlooking the railroad. Here Woodford locked the door, pulled off his coat, and took a large chew of tobacco. It was his way of preparing to wrestle with an emergency—a kind of mechanical means of forcing his faculties to a focus.
"Now, Billy," he said, "how is the best way to begin?"
Harris drew up his chair beside the bed on which his companion had seated himself.
"The situation is in this kind of shape," he began.
"The exporters have all the ships chartered and expect Ball & Holstein to furnish the cattle for next week's shipments. I believe that old Ball will kick out of the combine and tell the other exporters in the trust that they may go to the devil for their cattle. You know what kind of a panic this will cause. The space on the boats has been chartered and paid for, and it would be a great loss to let it stand empty. Nor could they ship the common stock on the market. All these men have foreign contracts, made in advance and calling for certain heavy grades of stock, and they are under contract to furnish a certain specified number of bullocks each week. They formed the combine in order to avoid difficulties, and have depended on a pool of all the stock contracted for by the several firms, out of which they could fill their boats when the supply should happen to be short or the market temporarily high. The foreign market is rising, and the old man is dead sure to hold on to the good thing in his clutches. I was so firmly convinced that the combine was going to pieces that I at once jumped on the first train west and hurried here to see you. The exporters must fill their contracts no matter what happens. If old Ball kicks over, as he is sure to do, the market will sail against the sky. We will have them on the hip if we can get the export cattle into New York, but we have no time to lose. These cattle must be bought to-day, and carred here to-morrow. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," said the cattle-shipper, striking his clenched right hand into the palm of his left. "It is going to be quick work, but we can do it or my name is not Woodford."
"We must have at least twelve carloads of big export cattle," continued Harris. "Not one to weigh less than sixteen hundred pounds. They must be good. Now, where can you get them quickest?"
"Well," answered the shipper, thoughtfully, "old Ralph Izzard has the best dray, but he wants five cents for them, and that is steep, too steep."
"No," said Harris, "that is all right if they are good. We have no time to run over the country to hunt them up. If these are the right kind we will not stand on his price."
"You can stake your soul on them being the right kind, Billy," answered the cattle-shipper enthusiastically. "Izzard picked them out of a drove of at least a thousand last fall, and he has looked after the brutes and pampered them like pet cats. They will go over sixteen hundred, every one of them, and they are as fat as hogs and as broad on the backs as a bed. I could slip out to his place and buy them to-night and have them here in time to car to-morrow, if you think we can give the old man his price."
"They will bring six and a half in New York, and go like hot cakes," said Harris, "but you will have to get out of this quick or you may run into a crowd of buyers from Baltimore."
"All right, Billy," said the cattle-shipper, rising and pulling on his coat, "I will tackle the old man to-night. We had better go to Clarksburg, and there you can lay low, and can come up to-morrow on the freight that stops here for the cattle. I will go out to Izzard's from there, and drive here by noon to-morrow. The accommodation will be along in about a half hour. I will go down and order the cars."
"Wait a moment, Woodford," said Harris, "we ought to have some written agreement about this business."
"What is the use?" answered the shipper. "We will go in even on it, but if you want to fix up a little contract, go ahead, and I will sign it. By the way, old Izzard is a little closer than most anybody else; we may have to pay him something down."
"I thought about that," said Harris, "and I brought some money with me, but I did n't have time to gather up much. I have about six thousand dollars here. Can you piece out with that?"
"Easy," replied the shipper. "The old devil would not have the nerve to ask more than ten thousand down."
William Harris seated himself at the table and drew up a memorandum of agreement between them, stating that they had formed a partnership for the purpose of dealing in stock, and had put into it ten thousand dollars as a partnership fund; that they were to share the profits or losses equally between them, and that the partnership was to continue for thirty days. This agreement both men signed, and Harris placed it in his pocket. Then the two men ordered the cattle cars for the following day and went to Clarksburg on the evening train.
Here Harris asked Woodford if he should pay over to him the five thousand dollars or put it in the bank. To this the cattle-shipper replied that he did not like to take the risk of carrying money over the country, and that it would be best to deposit it and check it out as it should be needed.
Woodford and Harris went to the bank. The shipper drew five thousand dollars from his own private account, put it with the five thousand which Harris handed him, and thrust the package of bills through the window to the teller.
"How do you wish to deposit this money, gentlemen?" asked the officer.
"I don't know, hardly," said the shipper, turning to his companion; "what do you think about it, Billy?"
"Well," said the commission-merchant, thoughtfully, "I suppose we had better deposit it in the firm name of Woodford & Harris, then you can give your checks that way and they wont get mixed with your private matters."
"That is right," said the cattle-shipper, "put it under the firm name." Whereupon the teller deposited the money subject to the check of Woodford & Harris.
"Now, Billy," continued Woodford, as they passed out into the street, "I will buy these cattle and put them on the train to-morrow. You go down with them. I will stay here and look over the country for another drove, and, if you want more, telegraph me."
"That suits me perfectly," replied Harris. "I must get back to New York, and I can wire you just how matters stand the moment I see the market." Then the two men shook hands and Harris returned to his hotel.